About David Getoff

David’s prayer: View here

My Story

I was born in the early 50’s in New York City.  My parents were both private practice clinical psychologists but my mother had previously been an English teacher.  They were quite different as pop was a psychoanalyst while mom did more unconventional therapies such as Primal, encounter groups, and scream therapy per Dr. Daniel Casriel.  Interestingly, many years later they both ended up being trained by DR. Harville Hendrix in IMAGO therapy.  He wrote Getting the Love You Want and many other similar books.  Of course like many couples in which both are in these “healing” professions, they couldn’t get along with each other and split up when I was 12.  Lucky for me, they both loved me very much and showed it in their own ways.  From kindergarten and nursery school through the 6^th grade, they spent a great deal of money sending me to an elite progressive school at 1 West 88^th street, across the street from Centra Park,  named The Walden School.  It was only about 4 blocks from where we lived at 89^th Street and Broadway in a 7 room over 2100 square foot apartment in an old 12 story brick building.

I didn’t realize it then, but I am sure the Walden school changed my life. My classmates included the sons and daughters of senators, actors and actresses, and other wealthy public and private figures.  To me, they were just my classmates and I knew nothing of there elite status until many years after I left Walden.

One of the things that was always important at Walden as well as to my parents, was that I be an independent thinking and investigational person.  Neither at home or in school was I, or my baby brother Michael, ever put into any “box” of what we could learn or become.  Everything was open to us.  Walden, was the only private school where there was zero dress code and en extremely open way of teaching and learning.  Today, due to legal and insurance issues, only college students might have classes using “dangerous” power tools. At Walden, in the 5^th and 6^th grades, I learned woodworking with our teacher John (don’t know if I knew his last name) using table saws, lathes, drill presses etc..  In Wikipedia® you will find:

Walden School was a private day school in Manhattan, New York City, that operated from 1914 until 1988, when it merged with the New Lincoln School; the merged school closed in 1991. Walden was known as an innovator in progressive education. Faculty were addressed by first names and students were given great leeway in determining their course of study. Located on Central Park West at 88th Street, the school was very popular with intellectual families from New York’s Upper West Side and with families based in Greenwich Village

Back then, we kids who lived in the area, walked to school alone even in the 5^th and 6^th grades.  Today parents would be terrified not accompany their young kids to school and pick them up. I remember when president Kennedy was shot, the school closed down for the day and I walked home when I would have been about 11 years old.  I am sure that the progressive nature of Walden and my parents, had an important role in making me the very open minded but investigatory and scientific professional I am today.

In Walden, whenever a student had measles, mumps or chicken pox, they would put the family’s name and phone number on the bulletin board so other parents could call to set up times to bring their children over to play so as to get the childhood disease and develop their lifetime immunity.  Since very few of today’s childhood vaccines were as yet developed and being used, we had no ADD/ADHD, no autism, and no inhalers as none of the kids had asthma or other chronic conditions. For lunch we had the school’s kitchen which cooked various vegetables and an assortment of meats and fish and once a week or so they also served liver.  The foods seemed as good as what we made at home, where my mom had learned I had a good taste for spices and would always call me in to taste and season stews, soups and casseroles.

When my dad left, he was no longer willing to pay his part of Walden’s high tuition and I was thrown into the public school system at  William J. O’Shea junior high 44.  My parents gave me the choice, since my test scores were high enough, to either enter their “enriched” program and learn much more than those in the regular classes, or to take the 7^th and 8^th grades together and skip a year. Heck, I was a kid, of course I picked finishing Junior High a year early, so it was 7-8 SP1 and then 9 SP2.  SP stood for special progress and we had different teachers and were taught at a higher grade level in classes like English and math and the sciences.  The regular class kids often didn’t like the SP kids (so what else is new?) So we were often made fun of and sometimes accosted in the halls and even occasionally had our lunch money taken by the gang type kids to show they were better because they were stronger?  This is likely only of the reasons that I decided, with my parents approval and money of course, to take Shaolin style Kung Fu lessons from Master William Chun while in high school. He was the Sifu (master) who trained the actor David Carradine who played Kwai Chang Caine in the Kung Fu television series.  I remember him telling the class that Carradine was not a very good student.  My defensive abilities improved greatly and I was never bullied or taken advantage of in Louis D Brandeis high school.  One tough looking boy made fun of me once in my white leotard while I was practicing in the gymnasium, (I was on the gymnastics team) but when he put his hand on me and I instantly put him on his back on the floor, I never saw him again.

High school was more fun than junior high. It had just been built, so my best friend and I always compared notes as he went to the Bronx High School of Science which is highly respected. He was required to take biology, chemistry and physics, while I took the same course but I took physics as a non required elective.  We had all ne electronic scales and test equipment and he had old balance scales.  In mechanical drawing class, he had to sharpen the drawing pencils on a sandpaper board and we had the new special sharpeners.  We both seemed to be learning the same information but he was in a school filled only with very smart kids and Brandeis was mostly kids who would become tradespeople and not go to college so I was at the top in my school and he was more average in his.  All in all, high school was fun and I did very well in all the math and science classes which were my favorite subjects to learn.  I actually helped the physics teacher teach the slower students when we learned about electronics and built simple crystal radios as it had been a hobby of mine for years.

Some time around my high school years I became interested in health and I read Adelle Davis’s books. I think I bought most of them but I do remember Let’s Cook it Right, Let’s  Eat Right to Keep Fit, and Let’s Get Well.  I continued this interest and read books by Dr. Richard Passwater, Roger Williams, and  Pavo Airola to name a few that I remember.  I also subscribed to Let’s Live magazine for many years as well as Organic Gardening and Farming since I planted my first organic garden at age 12 or 13 in Southold Long Island at the home of my father and stepmother Mary Mooney on Waterview Drive.

Since college (City College of New York) had been boring, I only completed 45 credits before leaving in 1972.  I did enjoy competing as part of the Varsity rifle team for 2 years and winning numerous medals at competitions around the U.S.   My strong desire for knowledge and perfection sent me in many directions over the 10 years after leaving CCNY.  A few occupations/trades I became very proficient at included, photography and darkroom technique, locksmithing, paste-up for an offset printer in lower Manhattan, electronics technician, audio video technician for Aniforms corporation, cooking, and a bit later in California, electrical and locksmithing contractor, and electrical design and applications engineer CAIG laboratories and OAL Associates.  I also worked in a Bonsai dwarf tree nursery and ran a one hour photo lab in San Diego.

Yikes, that makes me look like I couldn’t sit still, but that is not at all the issue.  Every time I became very proficient at something, it no longer challenged me and I had to find a new challenge worth learning about.  Oh and I also graduated from the American Motorcycle Institute of Daytona Beach as a motorcycle mechanic.  That was a fun 3 month 8 hour a day residential school but I only wanted to learn mechanics for myself, not to work as one.  For some unknown reason, I never thought strongly of going into health nutrition or medicine as an occupation even though my dad would often ask me for health advice for some of his patients and they were always vary happy with their results if they followed my advice.  One time, he phoned me to say that the changes in a patients mental health and attitude had to have come from the dietary and supplement changes I had suggested since psychoanalysis cannot make changes anywhere near that fast and the patient said to express his sincere thanks.

During 1975-78 I managed Brooklyn Divers Supply SCUBA school and store where I taught SCUBA classes and dives, serviced the life support equipment and supervised a few other instructors.  My interest in health and medicine continued as I read more books, magazines and medical health newsletters.  Since I was taking SCUBA students on dives in New York, New Jersey and the Florida Keys I figured I should learn some emergence medicine so I went through the training and got certified as, an EMT (emergency medical technician) with the State of New York as well as advanced first aid and CPR Instructor.  I took all these classes from some of my SCUBA students who ran the Rockaway Point volunteer fire department.  In 1978 I also took a semester long college class at the New School for Social Research entitled Nutrition Against Disease taught by Robert Giller, MD.  Dr. Giller used diet modification, nutritional supplements, hair mineral testing and allergy testing to heal his patients of numerous conditions and that was very interesting, peaking my inquisitive nature even more.

My brother and I moved to San Diego County at the beginning of 1979 to work for a friend of our mothers in his tool store in La Mesa.  He closed the store in under a year and I stayed but my brother soon went back to New York.

I continued working in many different occupations, as mentioned previously but never stopped studying health and nutritional medicine.  Somewhere around 1990, while I was self employed in a thriving home repair business I had started, I became bothered by how little most women knew about home repairs.  I continually met women who had been badly taken advantage of by plumbers, electricians, painters, carpenters,  auto mechanics, etc.  Women who might have paid many hundreds of dollars to replace a toilet or a shower valve that should have simply been inexpensively repaired if the tradesman had been honest.   I drafted an outline for a 6 week course that I titled Everyday Home Repairs for Women Only.  I had previously become credentialed after taken a few special teaching courses from  Jane Stein, PhD at San Diego State, and I hoped that I could interest some colleges adult education department in hiring me to teach this class.  I picked San Diego State, University, Grossmont College and Palomar College to pitch my idea to.  I was both surprised, please and a bit overwhelmed when they all said when could I start!  So for the next couple of years I taught my class on different evenings of the week at all three colleges.  I would attend the national conferences like Electric West and the Plumbing and Heating Association and bring copies of the college catalogs listing and describing my classes.  All the major manufacturers sent me supplies for free.  Moen and Delta shipped me a dozen faucets to teach the student how to take them apart and repair them, one company shipped me an entire full size plastic toilet to explain how it woks and what problems cause which symptoms.  Tool companies sent me test meters, screw drivers and wrenches.  It was a real blast seeing these women learn things so that they could no longer be taken advantage of.  I went over what types of adhesives are best for gluing what to what, which wall anchors work best.  What the best brands of tools are and why the good ones work better and last longer etc…..    If one of my students felt comfortable repairing her toilet, she could now do so.  If not, and a plumber told he she needed a new toilet, she now had the knowledge to say, “it’s just the Ballcock”, or “it only needs a better sealing flapper” and if you try to sell me a new toilet I will report you to the better Business Bureau and the Contractors State License Board.  I explained to them the need to file these reports so other consumers would be forewarned.

Although I have always loved teaching, and I really loved teaching these classes, my interest in nutrition kept pulling at me.  I was driving and flying to seminars in nutrition to learn more and more.  Took a simple non proctored take home exam in 1993 to become a Certified Nutritional Consultant (CNC) and that is when I discovered how poorly educated and unregulated the nutrition field had always been.  Registered Dietitians were still being taught based on what their funding backers wanted them to believe rather than the truth. The pharmaceutical manufacturers and the sugar and soda and cold cereal and snack food industry with all the unhealthy crap they were selling to the public,  were funding the organization which produced and certified RD’s (registered dieticians).  They had just as little (and wrong) nutrition knowledge as the MD’s, what a farce.  I began questioning the few, nutritionally oriented PhD’s,  MD’s and researchers who I met or who were lecturing at the seminars I was attending whether they knew of any really good nutrition organization with a real and meaningful certification.  Quite a few told me I might want to investigate the International and American Association of Clinical Nutritionist based in Texas.  After the 3^rd or 4^th professional mentioned the same group, I phoned them in 1993 or 94.  I spoke to the founder, Winna Henry.  We had a long conversation in which she grilled me with dozens of nutrition questions.  Finally she told me that she was surprised I had gained so much correct knowledge on my own.  That I knew that a low fat diet was not healthy.  That I knew that cholesterol was not an enemy.  That I knew that the unhealthy fats included margarine, Canola oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, and soybean oil and that butter and coconut oil were good for you.  She told me that she would love me to join them and see if I could pass their 5 hour certification exam and what college had I graduated from and with what degree.  When I told her I left college with only 45 credits in 1972 she said that was too bad as I needed a fully accredited bachelors degree, preferably in nutrition in order to sit for th exam. That my having already been counseling clients for years would exempt me from their other current requirements but I needed the degree. When I told her that this was important to me so I would complete my BS and get it in nutrition, she offered to let me join as an associate member and attend their conferences and if I did that, than any new additional requirements would not be needed if I completed my degree within a few years.  I accepted.

Damn, I never really thought I would go back to get a degree but I wanted to join this group.  I went hunting for colleges that although they had to be fully regionally accredited, would at least give me some credit for my extensive knowledge in many areas including nutrition.  I finally settled on The Union Institute which was originally part of the University without walls.   Due to my extensive knowledge in many areas, I was able to write many long papers to prove I had equivalent knowledge to many college courses.  I was also able for some of my courses, to get credit for my knowledge of photography and teaching.  I was even approved by the dean to develop titles for a few courses that had not previously existed and then write papers to get credit for these course.  Each rather long college level paper was required to have full lists of reference books I had read and needed to be evaluated and approved by a masters or PhD in the subject of the paper. For some, the reviewer also needed to interview me.    These included course titles such as Nutrition and Environmental Illness, Nutrition, Health and the Media, Medical Herbology, and Therapeutic Nutrition.

I also had to take quite a few required courses through the Union Institute.  I finally receive my bachelors, which is in their files as in Nutrition and Holistic Therapies, at the beginning of 1999 at which time I sat for the 5 hour CCN board exam and received my CCN a few months later after they were all graded by an independent grading organization.  Many who took the exam with me did not pass.

The time line of this rather long and somewhat convoluted story jumps around a bit, but that is how I wish to tell it.

After teaching the Women’s course at all three colleges. all three semester of the school year for a couple of years, I decided that I only wanted to immerse myself (a word that I find misused today more than any other English word) in nutrition and health.  So I announced in each of my classes, that this would be that last class as I was going to only work in the field I love which is health and nutrition and that all my time would now be devoted to improving the health of my clients or patients and possibly developing a class to teach in nutrition. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined what happened next.  One at a time, during bathroom breaks or at the end of a class, many of the students came up to me and asked how they make an appointment to see me for their health or the health of a family member.  I was floored.  I told them each of my surprise and each one in their own words said basically the same thing, That after taking a few classes with me during this 6 week course, they felt very confident that I was honest and ethical and knew whatever I said I knew.  With that in mind, if I was now going to be counseling people in nutrition, their family needed my help and they wanted to schedule an appointment.  I had not yet even made up a business card or decided on what I would be charging and I was instantly booked up two weeks in advance.  Through 99% word of mouth advertising, I have remained booked up anywhere from 3 weeks to 5 months in advance ever since.  It is a good feeling to know that I am helping do many people and I only wish more people understood how little MD’s know about reversing health issues and how much of what they and most nutrition professionals have been taught IS WRONG.

The greatest difference between what I have done since I started practicing around 1992 versus what I do and have done since about 2004 is that previously I attended 5 to 10 conferences and seminars each year.  This was and is to stay up to date with all the information that expert clinicians and scientists are finding, but which may never get to the public for decades if ever.  The change is that now, I am often one of the experts being flown in to present at these same conferences, so I still attend many each year, I just also get to lecture at many of them.

This “story” of my life will also appear in my book on detoxification which will be published in early 2018

Photographs

Here are my “girls” Tomkha and Kahlua. They are purebred Tonkinese from www.celestialpets.com and are 9th generation 100% raw meat fed and will never be vaccinated. They were born on October 9th, 2004 and have said that as long as I play with them enough, pay the mortgage, let them sleep with me and give them their raw, free range meat, they will let me continue to live in their house.
Now that the girls are fully grown at 7.5 lbs for Kahlua and 8 lbs for Tomkha, here are some more photos for everyone to enjoy.They really do love each other.